Spinning yarns into comedy, chaos and hope

“I watch ALL the new TV,” I recently bragged at a family Thanksgiving, a fiction that I was rightly called out on.

But I do watch a lot and, more than that, I read about as close to all the upcoming TV as I can. It’s not (usually) for bragging rights but because stories are either distractions or inspiration and both are now more valuable than ever. Here are a handful of worthy-looking new series and docs.

●Phony (series premières today (Oct. 20) on Disney+/Hulu)

High schooler Sonny (Sam Nivola, The White Lotus) has every reason to be faltering in his perception of reality. He did, after all, just barely survive a terrible car accident. But his friends and the other responsible adults in his life are having a hard time with his insistence that his single mom and the school’s principal (Connie Britton) has been replaced by an imposter. Is he suffering from brain trauma or is a sinister plot afoot? This is billed as comedy/mystery, which is an intriguing combo.

● Newlyweds (series premières Friday, Oct. 23, on NBC/CTV, next day on Crave)

A truth for the ages is that dating is hell. One way to deal with it is to close up shop and stock your home with cats and premium ice cream. Another is to skip the dating part and get immediately married. The latter is the framework for this new sitcom created by Gail Lerner (Will & Grace) and executive produced by Jamie Lee Curtis, who gets to play the deliciously intrusive and inappropriate ex-wife of uptight James (Tim Daly, Leanne). After a whirlwind courtship, James and free spirit Jeanie (Téa Leoni) have set up house to the chagrin of almost everyone they know. Fun facts: Daly and Leoni are married in real life, and Lerner was fired earlier this month after completing the first six episodes. Let the fun begin?

● Yaga (series premières Friday, Oct. 23, on Crave)

Henry Park (Heated Rivalry’s Hudson Williams) is missing in the small fishing town of Whittock, but is it a tragedy or “some rich-kid shit that got outta hand”? Arriving to solve that mystery is Rapp (Schitt’s Creek’s Noah Reid), a private investigator now butting heads with a local detective and trying to decode the aura of a professor with a taste for young men (Carrie-Anne Moss). This comic mystery is based on the Kat Sandler play (which was produced at Winnipeg’s Tom Hendry Warehouse Theatre in 2023); she is also the series writer and executive producer.

● In Pursuit: Lessons of American Leadership (doc premières Tuesday, Oct. 27, on PBS) STORIES THAT MADE US (doc premières Friday, Oct. 30, on CBC)

As every reader and watcher knows even without thinking about it, stories are what define us, whether fact or fiction, on the page, device or screen. Two projects offer a more detailed view of that delivery service of self-definition. Both are based on previous digital-only projects. PBS’s In Pursuit distils the best of the essay series of the same name published weekly on Substack throughout 2026 on the theme of leadership lessons from American presidents and first ladies. Featured in the documentary special are Barack Obama on Abraham Lincoln, George W. Bush on George Washington, Bill Clinton on Theodore Roosevelt, Michelle Obama on Jacqueline Kennedy, Hillary Clinton on Eleanor Roosevelt, Laura Bush on Lady Bird Johnson, and Ken Burns on Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Over at CBC a few days later, is a roundup of the best of George Stroumboulopoulos’s web series asking prominent Canadians about the films and TV that shaped our national identity. Interviewees include actors Tantoo Cardinal, Ryan Reynolds and Jay Baruchel, as well as Prime Minister Mark Carney.

● Nocturne (series premières Friday, Oct. 30, on Apple TV)

Liev Schreiber is the star and exec producer of this new crime thriller based on the Swedish noir novels of a husband and wife team who write under the name Lars Kepler. Schreiber chose his co-stars well: Stephen Graham (Adolescence) and Zazie Beetz (Atlanta). Over the course of 10 episodes, ex-soldier Det. Jonah Lynn has fled big city stress to a small Pennsylvania town just as, what bad luck, people go missing in a style previously employed by an incarcerated serial killer (Graham). Lynn reluctantly gets involved and reluctantly accepts the help of FBI Agent Saga Bauer (Beetz). Supporting roles feature the talents of Bill Camp (Night Of), Rory Culkin (Under the Banner of Heaven), Chrissy Metz (This Is Us) and Poorna Jagannathan (Lanterns). Leave the lights on.

As is increasingly the case in this world of media mergers and cross-border rights squabbles, broadcast details are subject to change. All questions, comments and suggestions gratefully accepted at winnipegfreepress.com/deniseduguay.